Why Christmas Changes Us: Day 2

My friend said something that quietly astonished me:

When I was a kid, my father's store got robbed. It was several hundred dollars and everything turned out okay. We couldn't help but wonder if that person needed money to buy Christmas presents for his children. It doesn't make it okay, but...

Compassion for the hurt in the one who hurt them, all because we understand the impulse to give at Christmas.

We give with freer hearts because resonating deeply within our created selves, we are paying forward that which was so freely given to us through the birth, death and resurrection of Christ. Christmas celebrates the gift given, and we just want to give back in ways that never stir us through the rest of the year.

It is when the spiritual dimension in which we exist--yet often choose to ignore--bubbles up closer to the surface of our thinking. We are affected by the coming of Jesus no matter how hard we resist.

We know this because we give more freely:

The continual effort to neuter Christmas threatens that annual moment when, with softened heart, I wonder if Jesus is for me. I hope as a nation we fight to keep Christmas in the cloud of December that hovers over us, leading us to give and give freely. In that giving, we may see enough of Jesus to consider him for ourselves.

May we find, in the flood of giving, our very life raft to eternity.

Tomorrow: Forgiven.

Image: www.society6.com.

Verse: Matthew 10.

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